experiments with wilbur and bevel/emboss (dont let the title scare you off...)

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experiments with wilbur and bevel/emboss (dont let the title scare you off...)

so I've been struggling with the Eriond tutorial (mostly with the Wilbur part of it and converting the instructions to PS). Wilbur is a fascinating programme that will need a lot more practice on my part to get much usefulness out of, though I've been trying my best to come up with new ways of using it.

i generated a height map and created some rivers in Wilbur and exported the map back into PS and created a channel from it and applied it to a mask on a blank white later, using bevel/emboss, to see what i could come up with. after a bit of messing about i came up with this, which i think looks very promising:

I'm experimenting a bit more, but think we might be able to get something usable out of it, with some good gradient layers on top and/or textures layered above it. I'm not sure anyone has tried bevel/emboss with a wilbur map before (and if so, please let me know so i can give credit...)

please give me your input on this as i think i could make something out of it...

Interesting, I've never tried using bevel/emboss on a height map before; but then GIMP's bevel/emboss features are far more limited than that of PS. In GIMP you can use "Bump Map", a feature which I do not believe PS has (though correct me if I'm wrong), but you can also use "Emboss" to achieve a similar effect. I believe that and "Lighting Effects" are the typical choices for achieving the appearance of a 3D texture in Photoshop. At least that is the impression I got from reading Jezelf's tutorial (it's the last one on the list). You might also want to have a look at a2area's majestic, if somewhat complex Israh tutorial, since the Wilbur and Photoshop settings may be more applicable to the software you are working with than my tutorial will be.

As to the 3D effect you've achieved here, the test will be how well it handles a gradient map, or perhaps the color palette you choose for your gradient map. PS is vastly superior to GIMP on this score (see Jezelf's tutorial), as it offers a preview window that allows you to edit as you go. However one initial concern I have just looking at this image is that I wonder if the mountains have sufficient elevation to really pop out once you've added a gradient map. In my own experience I've found that I need to have quite a bit of contrast in order to make the mountains really pop. But like I said, it remains to be seen. You may discover another way of doing things!

As to the 3D effect you've achieved here, the test will be how well it handles a gradient map, or perhaps the color palette you choose for your gradient map. PS is vastly superior to GIMP on this score (see Jezelf's tutorial), as it offers a preview window that allows you to edit as you go.

Truth be told, it doesn't come out that well as the light/dark areas from bevel/emboss are just that - highlights and shading, rather than a heightmap so the gradient map doesnt come out as good. Though i think this is more suited to pattern/colour overlays.

A basic implementation of bevel/emboss is to make a copy of the image, blur that copy to convert hard edges into more rounded ones (effectively a heightmap), apply a lighting effect to that new heightmap, and blend that lighting image onto the original image. That should look suspiciously like what you have here. It's also the processing that Wilbur applies in its basic shader.

Taking your original height map and applying a gradient to it for coloring, followed by blending the map you have here with a mlutiply operation should look amazingly similar to Wilbur's basic land shader. The advantage that you have here is that the editable gradient map makes it a little easier to get different effects other than straight height-based coloring.

Taking your original height map and applying a gradient to it for coloring, followed by blending the map you have here with a mlutiply operation should look amazingly similar to Wilbur's basic land shader. The advantage that you have here is that the editable gradient map makes it a little easier to get different effects other than straight height-based coloring.